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Descriptive Essay: The Industrial Revolution and its Effects

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great age throughout the world. It represented major change from 1760 to the period 1820-1840. The movement originated in Great Britain and affected everything from industrial manufacturing processes to the daily life of the average citizen. I will discuss the Industrial Revolution and the effects it had on the world as a whole.

The primary industry of the time was the textiles industry. It had the most employees, output value, and invested capital. It was the first to take on new modern production methods. The transition to machine power drastically increased productivity and efficiency. This extended to iron production and chemical production.

It started in Great Britain and soon expanded into Western Europe and to the United States. The actual effects of the revolution on different sections of society differed. They manifested themselves at different times. The ‘trickle down’ effect whereby the benefits of the revolution helped the lower classes didn’t happen until towards the 1830s and 1840s. Initially, machines like the Watt Steam Engine and the Spinning Jenny only benefited the rich industrialists.

The effects on the general population, when they did come, were major. Prior to the revolution, most cotton spinning was done with a wheel in the home. These advances allowed families to increase their productivity and output. It gave them more disposable income and enabled them to facilitate the growth of a larger consumer goods market. The lower classes were able to spend. For the first time in history, the masses had a sustained growth in living standards.

Social historians noted the change in where people lived. Industrialists wanted more workers and the new technology largely confined itself to large factories in the cities. Thousands of people who lived in the countryside migrated to the cities permanently. It led to the growth of cities across the world, including London, Manchester, and Boston. The permanent shift from rural living to city living has endured to the present day.

Trade between nations increased as they often had massive surpluses of consumer goods they couldn’t sell in the domestic market. The rate of trade increased and made nations like Great Britain and the United States richer than ever before. Naturally, this translated to military power and the ability to sustain worldwide trade networks and colonies.

On the other hand, the Industrial Revolution and migration led to the mass exploitation of workers and slums. To counter this, workers formed trade unions. They fought back against employers to win rights for themselves and their families. The formation of trade unions and the collective unity of workers across industries are still existent today. It was the first time workers could make demands of their employers. It enfranchised them and gave them rights to upset the status quo and force employers to view their workers as human beings like them.

Overall, the Industrial Revolution was one of the single biggest events in human history. It launched the modern age and drove industrial technology forward at a faster rate than ever before. Even contemporary economics experts failed to predict the extent of the revolution and its effects on world history. It shows why the Industrial Revolution played such a vital role in the building of the United States of today.

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Essay on Industrial Revolution

Students are often asked to write an essay on Industrial Revolution in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Industrial Revolution

What was the industrial revolution.

The Industrial Revolution was a big change in how things were made. Before, people made goods by hand at home. Then, machines in big buildings called factories started doing this work. This change began in Britain in the late 1700s and spread to other countries.

Changes in Technology

New machines could spin thread much faster than by hand. The steam engine was also invented. This could power machines and move trains and ships. These inventions made making things and moving them around quicker and cheaper.

Impact on People

Many people left farms to work in factories in cities. Life became hard for these workers. They worked long hours for little money. But, more goods were made, and over time, people’s lives improved as new jobs were created.

Global Effects

The Industrial Revolution changed the world. Countries with factories got rich and powerful. They used resources from other places to make goods. This led to big changes in trade and made some countries very wealthy.

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250 Words Essay on Industrial Revolution

What was the industrial revolution.

The Industrial Revolution was a big change in the way things were made. Before this time, people made goods by hand at home or in small shops. Around the late 18th century, this changed. Machines began to do the work in big factories. This started in Britain and then spread to other parts of the world.

Changes in Industry

Machines could make things faster and cheaper than humans could by hand. This meant more products could be made and more people could buy them. Steam engines powered these machines, and coal was the fuel. This led to a rise in coal mining and iron production.

Life During the Revolution

Because of factory work, cities grew as people moved there for jobs. This was a big shift from life on farms. Working in factories was hard, and many worked long hours for low pay. The air and water got dirty from the factories, too.

Impact on Society

The Industrial Revolution changed life a lot. Travel became easier with trains and steamships. Communication got better with inventions like the telegraph. People’s lives improved with new goods and technology. But, there were also bad parts, like child labor and pollution.

500 Words Essay on Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a time of big change in how people worked and lived. It started in the late 1700s and went on until the early 1800s. Before this period, most goods were made by hand, and people lived in small villages and worked on farms. But during the Industrial Revolution, machines began to do the work that people and animals used to do. This change began in Britain and then spread to other countries, including the United States and parts of Europe.

New Inventions

One of the most important parts of the Industrial Revolution was the creation of new machines. These machines could make things faster and cheaper than before. For example, the spinning jenny allowed one worker to make several threads at the same time, and the steam engine could power different kinds of machines. Because of these inventions, factories were built where many machines could work together. This was much different from the old way of making things at home or in small workshops.

Life in Factories

Transportation changes.

The Industrial Revolution also changed how goods and people moved from place to place. The steam locomotive made it possible to build railways, which could transport goods and people much faster than horses and carts. Ships also got steam engines, which made travel across oceans quicker and easier. This meant that goods could be sold far away, and it was easier for people to move to new places.

The Industrial Revolution had a big impact on society. It made some people very rich, especially those who owned the factories. But many workers lived in poor conditions and did not get much money. Over time, this led to new laws to protect workers and improve their lives.

Changes in Agriculture

Farming also changed during the Industrial Revolution. New machines like the seed drill and the mechanical reaper made farming more efficient. This meant fewer people were needed to work on farms, so they went to work in the factories instead.

The Industrial Revolution was a time of great change. It made life different in many ways, from how people made things to how they lived and worked. It was not always easy or good for everyone, but it led to the modern world we know today. We still feel the effects of these changes in our daily lives, as the new ways of making and doing things that started back then continue to shape our world.

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Home — Essay Samples — History — History of the United States — Industrial Revolution

Essays on Industrial Revolution

Industrial revolution essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: the industrial revolution: catalyst for economic transformation and social change.

Thesis Statement: This essay explores the Industrial Revolution as a pivotal period in history, analyzing its role as a catalyst for economic transformation, technological innovation, and significant societal changes in labor, urbanization, and living conditions.

• Introduction
• The Emergence of Industrialization: Transition from Agrarian to Industrial Society
• Technological Advancements: Inventions and Their Impact on Production
• Factory System and Labor: The Changing Nature of Work
• Urbanization and Its Consequences: The Growth of Industrial Cities
• Social Reforms and Challenges: Responses to Inequities and Labor Conditions
• Legacy of the Industrial Revolution: Long-Term Effects on Modern Society

Essay Title 2: The Dark Side of Progress: Environmental Consequences and Labor Exploitation during the Industrial Revolution

Thesis Statement: This essay critically examines the Industrial Revolution, shedding light on its environmental consequences, the exploitation of laborers, and the ethical dilemmas that arose as a result of rapid industrialization.

• Environmental Impact: Pollution, Deforestation, and Resource Depletion
• Factory Conditions and Child Labor: The Human Cost of Industrialization
• Ethical Considerations: Debates on Economic Gain vs. Social Welfare
• Worker Movements and Labor Reforms: Struggles for Workers' Rights
• The Industrial Revolution and Globalization: Impact Beyond Borders
• Reevaluating Progress: Lessons for Sustainable Development

Essay Title 3: The Industrial Revolution and Its Influence on Modern Economic Systems and Technological Advancements

Thesis Statement: This essay analyzes the profound influence of the Industrial Revolution on contemporary economic systems, technological innovations, and the enduring legacy of industrialization in shaping our modern world.

• Capitalism and Industrialization: The Birth of Modern Economic Systems
• Technological Breakthroughs: The Impact of the Steam Engine, Textile Industry, and More
• The Role of Industrial Giants: Key Figures and Their Contributions
• Globalization and Trade Networks: Connecting Continents and Markets
• Innovation and the Information Age: Tracing Technological Progress
• Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities: Navigating the Post-Industrial World

Prompt Examples for Industrial Revolution Essays

The impact of industrialization on society.

Examine the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution. How did the shift from agrarian economies to industrialized societies affect the lives of individuals, families, and communities? Discuss changes in work, living conditions, and social structures.

The Role of Technological Advancements

Analyze the technological innovations that drove the Industrial Revolution. Explore the inventions and advancements in industry, transportation, and communication that transformed economies and societies. Discuss their significance and long-term effects.

Economic Transformation and Capitalism

Discuss the economic aspects of the Industrial Revolution. How did the rise of industrial capitalism reshape economic systems and create new opportunities and challenges for businesses and workers? Analyze the growth of factories, trade, and global markets.

Labor Movements and Workers' Rights

Examine the emergence of labor movements and workers' rights during the Industrial Revolution. Discuss the conditions and struggles faced by laborers and the efforts to improve working conditions, wages, and labor laws. Explore the role of unions and collective action.

Urbanization and the Growth of Cities

Explore the process of urbanization and the rapid growth of cities during the Industrial Revolution. Discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by urban life, including issues of overcrowding, sanitation, and social inequality.

Environmental Impacts and Sustainability

Analyze the environmental impacts of industrialization. How did the Industrial Revolution contribute to pollution, resource depletion, and environmental degradation? Discuss the early awareness of these issues and the emergence of sustainability concerns.

History's Turning Points: Walls, Rights, Revolutions

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The Worldwide Impact of The Industrial Revolution in The 18th and 19th Centuries

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The Most Important Factors that Contributed to America’s Industrial Revolution

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The Influence of Industrial Revolution on Children and Families

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1733 - 1913

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the mid-18th century. The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. The beginning of industrialization in the United States is started with the opening of a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793 by Samuel Slater.

There was a few reasons of the beginning of Industrial Revolution: shortage of wood and the abundance of convenient coal deposits; high literacy rates; cheap cotton produced by slaves in North America; system of free enterprise.

Samuel Slater is most associated with starting up the textiles industry in the U.S. An early English-American industrialist known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution" and the "Father of the American Factory System". He opened a textile mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793.

There were many improvements in technology and manufacturing fundamentals that improved overall production and economic growth in the United States. Several great American inventions affected manufacturing, communications, transportation, and commercial agriculture.

The Industrial Revolution resulted in greater wealth and a larger population in Europe as well as in the United States. From 1700 to 1900, there was huge migration of people living in villages to moving into towns and cities for work. The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history. During the Industrial Revolution, environmental pollution increased.

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Essay on Industrial Revolution

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The Industrial Revolution marks a pivotal period in human history, fundamentally transforming the fabric of society, economy, and technology. Spanning from the late 18th to the early 19th century, it commenced in Britain and gradually proliferated across the globe. This essay delves into the essence, causes, key developments, and profound impacts of the Industrial Revolution, offering insights for students participating in essay writing competitions.

Industrial Revolution

The genesis of the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to Britain, fueled by a confluence of factors including agricultural advancements, population growth, financial innovations, and a surge in demand for goods. Agricultural improvements led to food surplus, supporting a burgeoning population that provided labor and created a market for industrial goods. Moreover, Britain’s political stability, patent laws, and access to vast resources due to its colonial empire set a fertile ground for industrial innovation.

Technological Innovations

At the heart of the Industrial Revolution were groundbreaking technological innovations that revolutionized manufacturing processes. The introduction of the steam engine by James Watt and the development of power looms significantly enhanced productivity, transitioning industries from manual labor to mechanized production. The iron and coal industries also saw major advancements, with the smelting process being vastly improved by Abraham Darby’s use of coke, leading to stronger and cheaper iron.

Impact on Society and Economy

The Industrial Revolution ushered in dramatic social and economic shifts. Urbanization escalated as people flocked to cities in search of employment in factories, giving rise to burgeoning urban centers. While the revolution generated wealth and propelled economic growth, it also introduced stark social disparities and challenging working conditions. Child labor, long working hours, and unsafe environments became prevalent issues, sparking movements for labor rights and reforms.

Impact on Society

• Urbanization: The Industrial Revolution led to a massive shift from rural areas to cities as people moved in search of employment in factories. This urbanization changed the social fabric, leading to the growth of urban centers and the emergence of a new urban working class.
• Labor Conditions: Factory work during the early Industrial Revolution was often characterized by long hours, low wages, and harsh working conditions. This led to labor protests and the eventual emergence of labor unions advocating for workers’ rights.
• Technological Advancements: The Industrial Revolution saw the development of new technologies and machinery that revolutionized production processes. Innovations like the steam engine and mechanized textile mills transformed industries and increased efficiency.
• Social Stratification: The gap between the wealthy industrialists and the working class widened during this period, resulting in increased social inequality. The emergence of a capitalist class and the growth of industrial capitalism contributed to this divide.
• Education and Literacy: The need for a skilled workforce led to greater emphasis on education. Public education systems began to develop, contributing to higher literacy rates among the population.
• Family Life: The traditional family structure evolved as men, women, and children worked in factories. Child labor, in particular, became a contentious issue, eventually leading to child labor laws and reforms.
• Social Reform Movements: The harsh conditions of industrialization fueled various social reform movements, including the women’s suffrage movement, the abolitionist movement, and efforts to improve public health and housing conditions.

Impact on the Economy

• Economic Growth: The Industrial Revolution fueled rapid economic growth as production processes became more efficient, leading to increased output of goods and services.
• New Industries: New industries and sectors emerged, such as textiles, coal mining, iron and steel production, and transportation. These industries became the backbone of the modern economy.
• Global Trade: The Industrial Revolution facilitated global trade by improving transportation and communication networks. The expansion of railways, canals, and steamships allowed for the movement of goods on a larger scale.
• Entrepreneurship: The period saw the rise of entrepreneurship, with individuals and companies investing in new ventures and technologies. Innovators like James Watt and George Stephenson played pivotal roles in the development of steam power and transportation.
• Financial Institutions: The growth of industry led to the expansion of financial institutions, including banks and stock exchanges, to support investment and capital accumulation.
• Capitalism and Market Economies: The Industrial Revolution played a significant role in the development of capitalism and market-driven economies, with private ownership of means of production and the pursuit of profit as driving forces.
• Labor Markets: Labor markets evolved as people migrated to urban areas in search of work. The supply of labor increased, impacting wages, labor laws, and the development of employment contracts.
• Consumer Culture: Mass production and improved transportation made consumer goods more accessible and affordable. This contributed to the rise of consumer culture and the growth of retail markets.

Transportation and Communication Breakthroughs

Transportation and communication underwent transformative changes, shrinking distances and fostering global interconnectedness. The construction of railways and the steam locomotive revolutionized travel and commerce, enabling faster movement of goods and people. Similarly, the telegraph, patented by Samuel Morse, allowed for instantaneous communication over long distances, laying the groundwork for the modern connected world.

Environmental and Global Implications

The Industrial Revolution had profound environmental impacts, with increased pollution and resource exploitation becoming notable concerns. The reliance on coal and the expansion of industries contributed to air and water pollution, foreshadowing contemporary environmental challenges. Globally, the revolution catalyzed industrialization in other countries, altering global trade patterns and establishing new economic hierarchies.

Cultural and Intellectual Responses

The Industrial Revolution also sparked a rich cultural and intellectual response, inspiring movements such as Romanticism, which critiqued the era’s industrialization and its disconnect from nature. Philosophers and economists, including Karl Marx and Adam Smith, analyzed its implications on class relations and economic systems, offering divergent perspectives on industrial capitalism.

The Second Industrial Revolution

Following the initial wave of industrialization, a Second Industrial Revolution emerged in the late 19th century, characterized by further technological advancements in steel production, electricity, and chemical processes. Innovations such as the internal combustion engine and the harnessing of electricity for lighting and motors opened new avenues for industrial and societal development.

Challenges and Reforms

The Industrial Revolution’s darker facets, such as exploitative labor practices and environmental degradation, elicited calls for reform. The establishment of labor unions and the enactment of laws to improve working conditions and limit child labor were critical steps towards addressing these issues. These reforms laid the groundwork for modern labor rights and environmental consciousness.

Legacy and Continuing Influence

The legacy of the Industrial Revolution is enduring, laying the foundations for modern industrial society and shaping the contemporary world. Its innovations spurred continuous technological progress, setting the stage for the information age and the current technological revolution. Moreover, it has left lasting imprints on societal structures, economic practices, and global relations.

In conclusion, The Industrial Revolution was not merely a period of technological innovation; it was a profound transformation that redefined human society, economy, and the environment. Its multifaceted impacts, from spurring economic growth and global interconnectedness to introducing social challenges and environmental concerns, underscore its complexity and significance. As students delve into the intricacies of the Industrial Revolution, they uncover the roots of modern society and the ongoing evolution shaped by this pivotal era in human history. This exploration not only enriches their understanding of the past but also offers valuable lessons for addressing the challenges and opportunities of the future.

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What Was the Industrial Revolution?

• Impact on Society
• Impact on Tariffs

Advantages of Industrialization

Disadvantages of industrialization.

• Key Innovations

Industrial Revolution: Definition, History, Pros, and Cons

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Investopedia / Matthew Collins

The Industrial Revolution was a period of major mechanization and innovation that began in Great Britain during the mid-18th and early 19th centuries and later spread throughout much of the world. The British Industrial Revolution was dominated by the exploitation of coal and iron.

The American Industrial Revolution, sometimes referred to as the “Second Industrial Revolution,” began during the Gilded Age in the 1870s and continued through World War II. The era saw the mechanization of agriculture and manufacturing and the introduction of new modes of transportation, including steamships, the automobile, and airplanes.

Key Takeaways

• The first Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the 1700s and 1800s and was a time of significant innovation.
• The American Industrial Revolution followed in the late 19th century and was an engine of economic growth in the U.S.
• The Industrial Revolution led to inventions that included the assembly line, telegraph, steam engine, sewing machine, and internal combustion engine.
• Working for businesses during the Industrial Revolution paid better wages than agricultural work.
• The increase in the number of factories and migration to the cities led to pollution, deplorable working and living conditions, and child labor.

How Did the Industrial Revolution Impact Society?

Although the Industrial Revolution began more than 200 years ago, it is a period that left a profound impact on how people lived and the way businesses operated. Arguably, the factory systems developed during the Industrial Revolution are responsible for creating capitalism and the modern cities of today.

Before this period most households subsisted by farming and lived primarily in small, rural communities. With the advent of factories during the 18th century, people began working for companies located in urban areas for the first time. Often the wages were low and conditions harsh. However, working for such businesses still paid a better living wage than farming.

Production efficiency improved during the Industrial Revolution with inventions such as the steam engine, which dramatically reduced the time it took to manufacture products. More efficient production subsequently reduced prices for products, primarily due to lower labor costs, opening the marketing doors to a new level of customers.

The Industrial Revolution developed in conjunction with the capitalist economies. Business owners (capitalists) began to organize labor centrally into factories and introduced a division of labor to increase output and profitability. Compared with the craft and guild systems that preceded it, capitalist production incentivized technological change and innovation at an unprecedented rate.

The Industrial Revolution was driven, in part, by the adoption of coal as an energy source. Before the use of coal, wood was the primary energy source; coal provided three times more energy than wood, and Britain had large coal deposits.

What Were the Effects of the Industrial Revolution on Tariffs?

The Industrial Revolution was not always organic or directed by free market forces alone. The United States government, for instance, helped domestic industry at the time by instituting tariffs —taxes on foreign imported goods—so that products such as steel were cheaper than foreign imports. Cheaper steel prices encouraged the development of infrastructure , such as railroads and bridges, during the American Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution created an increase in employment opportunities. Wages at factories were higher than what individuals were making as farmers. As factories became widespread, additional managers and employees were required to operate them, increasing the supply of jobs and overall wages.

As most of the factories and large companies were located near cities, populations migrated to urban areas searching for jobs, often overwhelming the available housing supply. This led to significant improvements in city planning. Increased innovation disrupted the status quo , bringing new technologies to the masses and leading to higher levels of education. Such groundbreaking inventions, still used today, include the sewing machine, X-ray, lightbulb, calculator, and anesthesia.

Due to the Industrial Revolution's advancements, the nation saw the first combustible engine, incandescent light bulb, and modern assembly line used in manufacturing. The Industrial Revolution changed how people worked and the technologies available to them, which affected where they lived. It made life comfortable for many, though living conditions for workers remained abhorrent, which eventually fueled the rise of labor unions . This led to improved working conditions and fair wages.

Although there were numerous advancements during the Industrial Revolution, rapid progress caused many problems. As workers left their farms to work in factories for higher wages, it led to a shortage of food production.

The sharp increase in the number of factories caused an increase in urban pollution. Pollution wasn't contained only in the factories; as people flocked to the cities, living conditions became deplorable as the urban resources were overwhelmed. Sewage flowed in the streets in some cities, and manufacturers dumped waste from factories into rivers. Water supplies were not tested and protected, which eventually led to regulations and laws being enacted.

The Industrial Revolution provided an incentive to increase profits, and as a result working conditions in factories deteriorated. Long hours, inadequate remuneration, and minimal breaks became the norm. Child labor was a significant issue. Health issues arose for many of the factory workers, giving rise to the labor movement throughout the U.S .

Advancements in production

Growth in innovations and inventions

Higher wages

Improvements in transportation networks

Deplorable working conditions and child labor

Unsanitary living conditions and pollution

Food shortages

Inequitable distribution of profits

What Key Innovations Took Place During the Industrial Revolution?

The first cotton mill was built after Samuel Slater brought Britain's manufacturing technology to the United States. The mill was powered by water bringing jobs and commerce to the Northeast. In the following years many factories and mills were built using the same technologies.

In 1869 the first transcontinental railroad was completed. This was a major accomplishment for the U.S., as it allowed the transportation of goods, people, and raw materials nationwide.

Also, during the American Industrial Revolution Samuel Morse created the telegraph, which sent electric signals over a wire, allowing the nation to communicate. Andrew Carnegie built the first steel mills in the U.S., Thomas Alva Edison created the lightbulb and the phonograph, and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Philo Farnsworth came up with television in 1928, though it didn’t establish itself as a popular entertainment medium until after World War II.

How Is the Industrial Revolution Best Defined?

The Industrial Revolution shifted societies from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing one, with products being made by machines rather than by hand. This led to increased production and efficiency, lower prices, more goods, improved wages, and migration from rural areas to urban areas.

When Was the Industrial Revolution?

The first Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain in the mid-to-late 1700s when machine manufacturing led to goods being produced in large quantities. This spread around the globe, and the second Industrial Revolution began in the U.S. in the late 1800s, creating further advancements in technology that drove greater efficiency.

What 3 Things Played a Role in the Industrial Revolution?

The use of iron and steel; new energy sources, such as coal and steam; and the factory system all fueled technological progress.

What Were the Most Important Inventions of the Industrial Revolution?

Among the most important inventions of the first Industrial Revolution are the steam engine, spinning jenny, cotton gin, and telegraph. The second Industrial Revolution brought the advent of the internal combustion engine, controlled electricity, the lightbulb, the telephone, the phonograph, radio, and television.

Library of Congress. " Rise of Industrial America, 1876-1900: Overview ."

Britannica. " Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution ."

The Brookings Institution. " Why are Fossil Fuels So Hard to Quit? "

BBC. " Why Was Coal so Important to the Industrial Revolution? "

Library of Congress. " The Industrial Revolution in the United States ."

Library of Congress. " City Life in the Late 19th Century ."

Library of Congress. " Work in the Late 19th Century ."

History. " Water and Air Pollution ."

Britannica. " Philo Farnsworth: American Inventor ."

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What Are the Causes and Consequences of Industrialization?

Learn about the Industrial Revolution and how technological innovations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries continue to shape society today.

A painting from 1855 of the Burmeister and Wain iron foundry in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Source: Peder Severin Kroye via Statens Museum for Kunst

Imagine a day in the life of an average American worker. They probably live in a city and start their mornings by driving to work. In the office, they check in with their manager, who assigns them tasks for the day, and around noon they take a lunch break with their coworkers. At the end of the day, they report how many hours they’ve worked, and every other week they receive a paycheck.

Seems normal, right?

Most of our ancestors wouldn’t agree. In fact, many aspects of our lives—including the goods we produce, the cities we live in, and the environment we inhabit—can be traced back to a period of groundbreaking innovation called the Industrial Revolution .

This resource explores how the Industrial Revolution transformed society between roughly 1750 and 1860 and how it continues to shape the world today.

What was the Industrial Revolution?

The Industrial Revolution was a transition, beginning in the eighteenth century, from small-scale, largely agricultural economies to more industry-intensive ones. It began in England and extended to other parts of Europe, the United States, and beyond. Propelled by technological advances that enabled vastly more efficient production, this process raised living standards dramatically, but also boosted the use of fossil fuels and, therefore, the emission of greenhouse gases .

Life before the Industrial Revolution

Before factories existed, highly skilled workers known as artisans made everything, including books, clothing, and furniture in small workshops across medieval Europe. The pace of production was slow, with each product individually handcrafted. In turn, goods were often expensive and in short supply.

Not just anyone could manufacture and sell such goods either. Around the eleventh century, associations of artisans called guilds came to power. Guilds lobbied and bribed politicians in order to become the exclusive manufacturers of certain products. This arrangement meant that selling a nail , for instance, without belonging to the official nail guild could land someone in prison.

And how exactly did one join a guild? Well, that, too, was no small feat. Prospective members worked in a system in which they supplied guild artisans with cheap labor in exchange for training. They then had to pay a membership fee that could cost around nine years in wages. Many guilds refused to admit women, migrants , farmers, propertyless men, formerly enslaved people, and practitioners of minority religions. As a result, guild membership belonged to privileged members of society and often passed from father to son.

Guilds not only decided who could make their products but also what those products could look like, enforcing strict guidelines on price and design. Although this system was intended to ensure that guild members did not have to compete against each other, it also had the effect of largely stifling innovation.

What caused the Industrial Revolution?

Guilds ruled the marketplace for a long time—but not forever.

By the late seventeenth century, the British government had repealed many of the guilds’ exclusive selling rights, without which artisans struggled to compete with upstart entrepreneurs who created more diverse goods at cheaper prices.

As guilds declined, this new class of manufacturers became increasingly wealthy, aided by various political and economic changes unfolding in England. New patent laws encouraged people to invest in innovation by ensuring they could protect and profit from their inventions. Reforms in banking made it easier to borrow money, helping businesses grow even larger. And the expansion of the British Empire meant businesses had millions of new potential customers.

Two further developments—innovations in manufacturing and the rise of the factory system—cemented the downfall of the guilds, marking the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in mid-eighteenth-century England. 

The invention of new machines allowed entrepreneurs to automate parts of the manufacturing process, leading to goods that could be produced faster and cheaper than ever before. One such entrepreneur, Richard Arkwright, patented the water frame in 1769, which harnessed waterpower in the textile weaving process rather than relying on hand-spinning. When Arkwright lost his water frame patent in court in 1785, a flood of entrepreneurs replicated his water-powered cotton mill. In subsequent decades, manufacturers in other industries would seek to similarly improve efficiency through the creation of new tools. A flurry of new inventions entered the market, including the cotton gin, the internal combustion engine, and the electric generator.

A diagram of the water frame developed by Richard Arkwright.

Source: Universal Images via Getty Images.

Notable Innovations of the Industrial Revolution

• Water Frame: During the late eighteenth century, as textile manufacturing boomed, inventors engineered multiple improvements on the spinning wheel. One such innovation, the water frame, used running water to both accelerate the pace of textile production and produce cotton yarn that was finer and more durable for weaving. Sir Richard Arkwright patented the machine in 1769, transforming the English textile industry.  
• Watt Steam Engine: Thomas Newcomen invented the first steam engine in 1711. Five decades later, James Watt improved upon Newcomen’s creation, devising a new, highly efficient engine that became a cornerstone of industrialization . Steam-powered machinery dominated manufacturing, agriculture, and transportation industries, increasing productivity and growth.  
• Internal Combustion Engine: The first alternative to the steam engine emerged in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century when engineers Alphonse Beau de Rochas and Nikolaus Otto separately built and patented internal combustion engines. The machines created power through pistons, which sparked the compressed fuel stored in a cylinder. Engineers still use this design today to power cars and motorcycles.  
• Electric Generator: In 1830, English physicist Michael Faraday invented the first electric generator. His machine used magnets to create electric currents. In following years, various inventors including Samuel Morse used Faraday’s generator to create another landmark apparatus—the telegraph, one of the earliest text-messaging devices.  
• Moving Assembly Line:  In 1913, Henry Ford pioneered the moving assembly in his car factories, using conveyor belts to transport component parts across different assembly stations. The innovation greatly increased the pace of manufacturing, and factory owners in other industries quickly adopted the technology. The moving assembly line made products cheaper for consumers but also changed working conditions by increasing the demand for cheap, unskilled labor.

Men on an assembly line work on Ford generators in a small plant at Ypsilanti, Michigan, about 2.5 miles from Dearborn.

Source: Bettmann Archive via Getty Images.

Around the same time, factories became increasingly common. Unlike guild-style workshops in which a single artisan would produce a good—say, a shoe—from start to finish, factories employed a system called division of labor. This system increased efficiency by dividing manufacturing into a series of tasks with each worker responsible for a single task. Rather than have one worker produce an entire shoe, each worker could spend their entire day fastening heels or threading shoelaces for hundreds of shoes. And because the majority of tasks were menial, factories could hire cheap, unskilled, and easily replaced laborers instead of artisans. In the early 1900s, Henry Ford further accelerated the pace of production by implementing the moving assembly line, which reduced the time it took to produce a single car from twelve hours to just over ninety minutes.   

Between the surge in technological innovation and the rise of a new system of production, the Industrial Revolution led to manufacturing becoming highly efficient and, therefore, highly profitable.

Consequences of Industrial Revolution

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, farming was a common profession. It was also precarious work. Any number of unpredictable factors, like a single drought or one bad harvest, could spell financial ruin and the inability to put food on the table. But as the Industrial Revolution produced new jobs—first in England and, eventually, around the world—people started leaving their farms for factories. With that transition came more reliable and consistent incomes. And with innovations in mass production, food and household items became cheaper and more readily available as well.

On the national level, in the mid-nineteenth century, the British economy was consistently growing for the first time in its history, buoyed by the country’s thriving textile, coal, and iron industries and their ability to produce goods at unprecedented rates.

The Industrial Revolution created so much growth that countries were willing to spy and steal to get their hands on the latest technology. The British government—determined to protect its economic advantage—even passed laws prohibiting the emigration of skilled workers and the export of industrial technology. Those laws, however, had little success. In one instance, a British industrialist named Samuel Slater emigrated to the United States in 1789 disguised as a farmer. He would go on to build the country’s first textile factory entirely from memory, having left Britain without notes or plans that could have been confiscated by British authorities. In the United States, Slater is known as the Father of the American Industrial Revolution; in England, he’s known as Slater the Traitor.

Five Ways the Industrial Revolution changed society

The Industrial Revolution would reorder not only the ways in which we produce goods but also the ways in which we work and live. Many of those changes are still felt today. Let’s explore five ways in which the Industrial Revolution reshaped society for centuries to come.

Changing workforce: The origins of today’s manufacturing workforce date back to the Industrial Revolution with the transition from artisan-led workshops to large factories employing cheap, unskilled workers. 

This transition, however, often faced resistance. As factories grew and workshops shuttered, highly skilled—and now unemployed—artisans turned to factories for work. For many, this was the first time they were not self-employed. They had managers dictating their schedules and assigning them monotonous, menial tasks far below their skill level. Some artisans rebelled against their employers, ignoring orders and moving from factory to factory without notification. Others outright revolted, breaking machines and attacking factories in protest. In response, factory owners—including Richard Arkwright—armed their buildings with guns and cannons.

Factory owners struggled to find new ways to manage their workers. For the first time, many workplaces began establishing designated management positions and strict working hours. In several instances, factory owners even tried to ensure that future generations of workers would be more disciplined and obedient, sponsoring churches, chapels, and the first Sunday schools. Many schools went through parallel changes and started implementing their own reforms, moving from small, informal schoolhouses to a “cells and bells” system with set schedules and larger class sizes.

Labor rights: Some of the first labor unions advocating for workers’ rights emerged during the Industrial Revolution in response to oppressive factory conditions and low wages.

Factories at the time largely lacked safety regulations, leading many workers to suffer injuries on the job. In addition, work shifts stretched as long as eighteen hours, and many factories employed children, some as young as five years old. Although the Industrial Revolution produced tremendous economic growth, many of those gains were concentrated in the hands of factory owners rather than the average worker.

Such conditions motivated calls for change and even inspired the German philosopher Karl Marx to write The Communist Manifesto . Those conditions also led to a rise in union membership. Unions, however, frequently faced pushback from factory owners and governments that feared that labor reforms could threaten productivity and profits. In many instances, conflicts between workers and management devolved into violence. The Pennsylvania state militia broke up a battle in 1892 between protesting union workers and a private security agency hired by the Carnegie Steel Company after fighting between the two sides left eight people dead.

Urbanization: For much of human history, the size of cities paled in comparison to today’s booming metropolises. At the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1750, England had just two cities with a population greater than fifty thousand. By 1851, that number had risen to twenty-nine. So what accounted for this massive wave of urbanization?

Early in the Industrial Revolution, factories—like Arkwright’s cotton mill—had to be built next to rivers in order to harness their energy. But in the early nineteenth century, an invention known as the Watt steam engine became increasingly popular. This device created energy by burning coal, which allowed entrepreneurs to move their factories away from water sources and into major cities full of people who would buy their products and work in their mills.

As urban factories opened, people migrated from rural areas into cities in search of work. However, cities were often unprepared to accommodate the influx. The lack of sufficient housing, clean water, and sanitation contributed to the spread of diseases such as cholera and typhus. 

Climate change: Manufacturers set the world on a dangerous climate trajectory when they started using coal to power their factories. The burning of coal releases greenhouse gases—such as carbon dioxide—which warm the planet by trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere.

Today, the world is nearly 1.8˚F (1˚C) warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution. While 1.8˚F could seem hardly noticeable on a sunny day, countries are already seeing the severe effects of planetwide warming at this level. Heat waves are lasting longer, crop yields are shrinking, and rising sea levels are threatening coastal areas.

Scientists warn that without a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, global temperatures could reach 2˚C (3.6˚F) above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures by 2050. Should this happen, the results would be catastrophic and potentially irreversible.

Colonialism: The Industrial Revolution fueled a new wave of colonialism , the economic effects of which can still be felt hundreds of years later.

As European manufacturing expanded, suppliers needed more customers and new sources of raw materials, such as coal and cotton. These interests, in part, motivated European empires to seize resource-rich lands abroad. Throughout the nineteenth century, England expanded its control over India, France colonized Algeria and large parts of Southeast Asia, and Germany took over territories in Africa—to name just a few examples.

Industrialized countries frequently forced their colonies to produce raw materials, which would be shipped to European homelands, turned into finished products, and sold back to the colonies at marked-up prices. Under British rule, India’s textile industry collapsed. The country went from making finished goods like fabric to instead exporting raw cotton to England and importing the same goods it once produced domestically. This process—known as deindustrialization—is believed to have severely stunted India’s economic development.

What can the Industrial Revolution teach us about innovation?

The legacy of innovation is complicated. The Industrial Revolution produced unprecedented economic growth, led to greater food security, and provided millions of people with access to previously unaffordable goods. At the same time, it contributed to deteriorating working conditions at home, economic exploitation abroad, and a climate crisis around the world.

Scholars today claim we’re in the midst of yet another Industrial Revolution. Artificial intelligence and new forms of automation are reshaping both low-skilled jobs like trucking and manufacturing and high-skilled professions like law and medicine.

It’s difficult to know whom this new Industrial Revolution will benefit and how it will reshape society. Some experts fear that innovation will lead to widescale unemployment, with potentially half of today’s positions automated by 2055. Others believe that job creation in entirely new industries will balance out job losses, as was the case during the first Industrial Revolution.

But one thing is certain: the legacy of innovation is lasting. Manufacturing changes from more than two hundred years ago have directly shaped today’s workdays, cities, climate, and global economy. How will a new age of industrialization reshape the ways we work and live in the future?

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Industrial Revolution and Technology

Whether it was mechanical inventions or new ways of doing old things, innovations powered the Industrial Revolution.

Social Studies, World History

Steam Engine Queens Mill

The use of steam-powered machines in cotton production pushed Britain’s economic development from 1750 to 1850. Built more than 100 years ago, this steam engine still powers the Queens Mill textile factory in Burnley, England, United Kingdom.

Photograph by Ashley Cooper

It has been said that the Industrial Revolution was the most profound revolution in human history, because of its sweeping impact on people’s daily lives. The term “industrial revolution” is a succinct catchphrase to describe a historical period, starting in 18th-century Great Britain, where the pace of change appeared to speed up. This acceleration in the processes of technical innovation brought about an array of new tools and machines. It also involved more subtle practical improvements in various fields affecting labor, production, and resource use. The word “technology” (which derives from the Greek word techne , meaning art or craft) encompasses both of these dimensions of innovation. The technological revolution, and that sense of ever-quickening change, began much earlier than the 18th century and has continued all the way to the present day. Perhaps what was most unique about the Industrial Revolution was its merger of technology with industry. Key inventions and innovations served to shape virtually every existing sector of human activity along industrial lines, while also creating many new industries. The following are some key examples of the forces driving change. Agriculture Western European farming methods had been improving gradually over the centuries. Several factors came together in 18th-century Britain to bring about a substantial increase in agricultural productivity. These included new types of equipment, such as the seed drill developed by Jethro Tull around 1701. Progress was also made in crop rotation and land use, soil health, development of new crop varieties, and animal husbandry . The result was a sustained increase in yields, capable of feeding a rapidly growing population with improved nutrition. The combination of factors also brought about a shift toward large-scale commercial farming, a trend that continued into the 19th century and later. Poorer peasants had a harder time making ends meet through traditional subsistence farming. The enclosure movement, which converted common-use pasture land into private property, contributed to this trend toward market-oriented agriculture. A great many rural workers and families were forced by circumstance to migrate to the cities to become industrial laborers. Energy Deforestation in England had led to a shortage of wood for lumber and fuel starting in the 16th century. The country’s transition to coal as a principal energy source was more or less complete by the end of the 17th century. The mining and distribution of coal set in motion some of the dynamics that led to Britain’s industrialization. The coal-fired steam engine was in many respects the decisive technology of the Industrial Revolution. Steam power was first applied to pump water out of coal mines. For centuries, windmills had been employed in the Netherlands for the roughly similar operation of draining low-lying flood plains. Wind was, and is, a readily available and renewable energy source, but its irregularity was considered a drawback. Water power was a more popular energy source for grinding grain and other types of mill work in most of preindustrial Europe. By the last quarter of the 18th century, however, thanks to the work of the Scottish engineer James Watt and his business partner Matthew Boulton, steam engines achieved a high level of efficiency and versatility in their design. They swiftly became the standard power supply for British, and, later, European industry. The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production. Its emergence freed manufacturers from the need to locate their factories on or near sources of water power. Large enterprises began to concentrate in rapidly growing industrial cities. Metallurgy In this time-honored craft, Britain’s wood shortage necessitated a switch from wood charcoal to coke, a coal product, in the smelting process. The substitute fuel eventually proved highly beneficial for iron production. Experimentation led to some other advances in metallurgical methods during the 18th century. For example, a certain type of furnace that separated the coal and kept it from contaminating the metal, and a process of “puddling” or stirring the molten iron, both made it possible to produce larger amounts of wrought iron. Wrought iron is more malleable than cast iron and therefore more suitable for fabricating machinery and other heavy industrial applications. Textiles The production of fabrics, especially cotton, was fundamental to Britain’s economic development between 1750 and 1850. Those are the years historians commonly use to bracket the Industrial Revolution. In this period, the organization of cotton production shifted from a small-scale cottage industry, in which rural families performed spinning and weaving tasks in their homes, to a large, mechanized, factory-based industry. The boom in productivity began with a few technical devices, including the spinning jenny, spinning mule, and power loom. First human, then water, and finally steam power were applied to operate power looms, carding machines, and other specialized equipment. Another well-known innovation was the cotton gin, invented in the United States in 1793. This device spurred an increase in cotton cultivation and export from U.S. slave states, a key British supplier. Chemicals This industry arose partly in response to the demand for improved bleaching solutions for cotton and other manufactured textiles. Other chemical research was motivated by the quest for artificial dyes, explosives, solvents , fertilizers, and medicines, including pharmaceuticals. In the second half of the 19th century, Germany became the world’s leader in industrial chemistry. Transportation Concurrent with the increased output of agricultural produce and manufactured goods arose the need for more efficient means of delivering these products to market. The first efforts toward this end in Europe involved constructing improved overland roads. Canals were dug in both Europe and North America to create maritime corridors between existing waterways. Steam engines were recognized as useful in locomotion, resulting in the emergence of the steamboat in the early 19th century. High-pressure steam engines also powered railroad locomotives, which operated in Britain after 1825. Railways spread rapidly across Europe and North America, extending to Asia in the latter half of the 19th century. Railroads became one of the world’s leading industries as they expanded the frontiers of industrial society.

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Why the Industrial Revolution Started in Britain

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The Industrial Revolution saw a wave of technological and social changes in many countries of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries, but it began in Britain for a number of specific reasons. Britain had cheap energy with its abundant supply of coal, and labour was relatively expensive, so inventors and investors alike were lured by the possibility of profit if machines could be made that ran on coal and saved labour.

In the Industrial Revolution the steam engine first powered pumps in mines. Steam power allowed machines like the power loom to replace costly skilled labour and massively increase textile production. Steam was used as the power source for trains and ships. Even in agriculture , devices like the threshing machine could now replace human labour. Mechanised factories replaced cottage industries and accelerated the rate of urbanisation. Whole towns developed around the major coalfields. Wages rose and new jobs were created, albeit very often less skilled work than before. Inhabitants of towns and cities then wanted manufactured consumer goods, as did markets abroad, and so the industrialisation process was perpetuated and accelerated. This process, with some variations, eventually happened in many countries, but Britain experienced it first.

The following factors were all present in Britain and explain why it experienced the Industrial Revolution first:

• efficient agriculture
• coal as a cheap fuel
• significant urbanisation
• high cost of labour
• intercontinental trade opportunities
• government support of business
• innovation and entrepreneurship
• venture capital investors
• new sales and marketing techniques

Before examining Britain, it is perhaps worth noting what industrialisation meant and what its timescale was in general. The Encyclopedia of the Victorian World defines industrialisation as follows:

Generic term for the economic and social processes by which a society shifts from an agricultural basis to a manufacturing basis dependent on modern machinery. In Britain the revolution was essentially over by the early years of the Victorian era, with a flourishing factory system in place, a large urban population at work, and a powerful capitalist class thriving. For the other western powers, however, the industrial revolution was just beginning. France underwent it after 1830, Germany after 1850, and the United States after 1865…Elsewhere – Russia, China , Japan , and what is now called the developing world – it would become a fact of life in the twentieth century. (235)

The Cost of Labour

The question, then, is: why was Britain the first to industrialise? The first area to examine in answering this question is the level of wages in Britain. The population of Britain rose dramatically in the 17th century, particularly in London and other cities. Only in the Netherlands was there similar urbanisation as there was seen in Britain in this period. Wages rose because the amount of arable land was fixed. Agriculture was obliged to become more efficient to meet the rise in population, both in the use of equipment and in organisation such as land enclosures which put communal land to farming uses. These two factors: urban growth and greater agricultural efficiency (what some historians have called an agricultural revolution) led to rising demand for labour, and so wages rose. An additional factor in the rise in the cost of labour was the necessity for landowners to attract labour and prevent it from relocating to the growing urban areas. This phenomenon was not the case in contemporary France, Italy , and Spain where wages and living standards were falling. Where wages were low, capital investment in machines was much less attractive, as the cost-savings of mechanising production would be far less or none at all.

A third factor in labour costs rising was intercontinental trade, which created more demand for goods and so labour. Britain had established colonies or trading centres in North America, the Caribbean, and in Bengal and other parts of India . Other European countries also had empires which gave trade benefits, but not all European countries did, notably Germany. Spain extracted great wealth from the Americas (less from trade and more from direct acquisition), but this proved detrimental to its own economy since the consequent hyperinflation meant that no manufacturing could ever be profitable there under those labour conditions. Britain made vast amounts of money from its colonial trade in raw materials, manufactured goods, and slaves. This money could be reinvested in new technology. Further, the British Empire grew to become a huge market for British-manufactured goods like machinery and textiles. Governments protected this trade by suppressing local competition, restricting the sales of certain goods to and by colonists, keeping out rival imperialist powers by force or the threat of it, and by blocking certain exports to Britain, such as Irish meat and dairy products.

A Gallery of 30 Industrial Revolution Inventions

Once the cycle of industrialisation had begun and a consumer market was created, so high wages perpetuated the process, as here explained by the economic historian R. C. Allen:

High wages increased the supply of British technology as well as the demand for it. High wages meant that the population at large was better placed to buy education and training than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. The resulting high rates of literacy and numeracy contributed to invention and innovation. (137)

Innovation, Entrepreneurship, & State Support

Another reason for Britain's early industrialisation was the strong spirit of entrepreneurship. Unlike, say in France, where government sponsorship of inventions was usually limited to military purposes or a direct benefit to the state, in Britain, inventors of all kinds were encouraged by private investors. These were either business owners or those simply seeking a good return on a capital investment. The latter group were at the time called 'projectors'; today we would call them venture capitalists. The investors were looking for inventors who could create any means whatsoever to increase production efficiency and so profits. There were also some inventors who were self-funded and motivated by either the search for profit or to create a benefit for society or both.

Inventors were also helped by the state's policies of relatively low taxation (in this area but not others) and the fact that interest rates were lower in Britain, which meant loans could be more easily acquired for research and development. There was also a system of strong protection for patents. Consequently, inventors were encouraged. On the other side of the coin , governments significantly helped capitalists who might buy the inventions with restrictions imposed by acts of Parliament on worker rights (for example, to form trade unions or for skilled machinists to emigrate). At the same time, there was a relative openness of the state and inventors to ideas from anywhere, including abroad. Skills were brought in by immigrants that increased productivity, which was not always the case in some of the more closed and authoritarian European states of this period. Another factor in favour of Britain's industrialisation was its political stability which increased investor confidence. The combination of all of these various political and economic factors encouraged investors to take risks in new technologies and ride out any worker backlash to mechanisation, more so than in other countries.

The simplest way to increase profits was to increase the quantities of manufacturing or mining production and at the same time reduce the number of workers needed. Machines could achieve both of these aims. Once sizeable factories were established, more inventors were funded to find yet more cost savings, and so the industrialisation process spread deeper and wider. British inventors were not slow to imitate and improve upon inventions they came across in other countries either. Sometimes, a new technology appeared in countries where it was not fully exploited, for economic reasons or otherwise, but Britain's industrialisation often meant these innovations could work or work better in the economic environment of Britain. British engineers, in particular, became experts at developing and improving upon inventions first made elsewhere. Often called tinkering, it was this side of inventing that Britain excelled at rather than creating new machines from scratch.

Just as there was an environment of financial investment in new ideas, there was, too, a spirit of invention, or rather, an environment in Britain which somehow fostered new ideas and, more importantly, their fruition into practical reality. A traditional view is that "Newtonian Science , the Enlightenment and genius [were important] in providing knowledge for technologists to exploit, habits of mind that enhanced research, networks of communication that disseminated ideas, and sparks of creativity that led to breakthroughs that would not have been achieved by ordinary research and development" (Allen, 138). However, Allen points out that the genius of inventors in itself was not unique to Britain. As we have already noted, several other factors were necessary for genius to thrive and be useful to the industrialists who would take new ideas off the drawing board and put them onto the factory floor. In short, adoption promoted invention.

The industrialisation process was perpetuated by greater demand, which was driven by a rise in population, urbanisation, education, and consumerism. Conflicts like the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815) also pushed innovation. Many British manufacturers ( Josiah Wedgwood is perhaps the clearest example) were innovative pioneers in their use of sales and marketing tools, such as using touring salespeople, offering elegant showrooms, giving free samples to the rich and famous for endorsement, creating a range of products that reflected new tastes in fashion, and providing discounts and refund possibilities. All of these techniques together helped achieve more sales, which further drove production, which meant there was more capital to invest in yet more innovations in industrialisation.

Inventing a machine was one thing, but having it run at a low cost was often quite another stage of development. A crucial factor in the question of whether machines could reduce production costs was the cost of the fuel they needed to run. Here Britain had a tremendous advantage over several other European countries (but by no means all). Britain was rich in coal. As a bonus, there were other natural resources of importance such as high-quality iron ore, lead, copper , and tin. Mining had been going on for centuries but had increased prior to the Industrial Revolution due to deforestation and the scarcity of wood. Coal became a cheap alternative to wood burning. It is no coincidence that many of the new cities growing up in Britain were near coalfields. These coalfields were all conveniently located near water for transportation, another great natural advantage Britain had.

The long history of mining in Britain meant that there was already the technological know-how of how to exploit minerals in the earth, which meant that when the new machines needed more coal than ever mined before, it was a question of increasing production rather than the more problematic issue of starting from scratch, as was the case in some other countries. Once again, when the first machines, usually steam engines, were in place and working, this encouraged further technological development to make them even more fuel-efficient and so, again, increase profits.

The mines accelerated both the growth in urbanisation and the rise in labour costs. In addition, cheap fuel often more than compensated for the high British labour costs and so meant that exports could be competitive.

In summary, then, several European countries had the advantages that Britain enjoyed in terms of creating a platform on which could be built a rapid process of industrialisation, but only Britain enjoyed all of the necessary, or most beneficial factors together. Some countries had trump cards. There was more gold in Spain, more coal in Germany, greater urbanisation in the Netherlands, and so on, but, overall, Britain had the winning hand in just where in the Western world industrialisation would take off. Then, once the wheels of industrialisation had started turning, more innovation meant they soon turned even faster, leaving behind most of Britain's European and North American rivals until they caught up later in the 18th or even 19th century. From around 1750 to 1850, the British were, it seems, justified in calling their island the workshop of the world.

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Bibliography

• Allen, Robert C. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective . Cambridge University Press, 2009.
• Armstrong, Benjamin. Britain 1783-1885 . Hodder Education, 2020.
• Dugan, Sally & Dugan, David. The Day the World Took Off. Channel 4 Book, 2023.
• Horn, Jeff. The Industrial Revolution . Greenwood, 2007.
• Yorke, Stan. The Industrial Revolution Explained. Countryside Books, 2005.

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Primary Source Set The Industrial Revolution in the United States

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The Industrial Revolution took place over more than a century, as production of goods moved from home businesses, where products were generally crafted by hand, to machine-aided production in factories. This revolution, which involved major changes in transportation, manufacturing, and communications, transformed the daily lives of Americans as much as— and arguably more than—any single event in U.S. history.

An early landmark moment in the Industrial Revolution came near the end of the eighteenth century, when Samuel Slater brought new manufacturing technologies from Britain to the United States and founded the first U.S. cotton mill in Beverly, Massachusetts. Slater’s Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, like many of the mills and factories that sprang up in the next few decades, was powered by water, which confined industrial development to the northeast at first. The concentration of industry in the Northeast also facilitated the development of transportation systems such as railroads and canals, which encouraged commerce and trade.

The technological innovation that would come to mark the United States in the nineteenth century began to show itself with Robert Fulton’s establishment of steamboat service on the Hudson River, Samuel F. B. Morse’s invention of the telegraph, and Elias Howe’s invention of the sewing machine, all before the Civil War. Following the Civil War, industrialization in the United States increased at a breakneck pace. This period, encompassing most of the second half of the nineteenth century, has been called the Second Industrial Revolution or the American Industrial Revolution. Over the first half of the century, the country expanded greatly, and the new territory was rich in natural resources. Completing the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 was a major milestone, making it easier to transport people, raw materials, and products. The United States also had vast human resources: between 1860 and 1900, fourteen million immigrants came to the country, providing workers for an array of industries.

The American industrialists overseeing this expansion were ready to take risks to make their businesses successful. Andrew Carnegie established the first steel mills in the U.S. to use the British “Bessemer process” for mass producing steel, becoming a titan of the steel industry in the process. He acquired business interests in the mines that produced the raw material for steel, the mills and ovens that created the final product and the railroads and shipping lines that transported the goods, thus controlling every aspect of the steelmaking process.

Other industrialists, including John D. Rockefeller, merged the operations of many large companies to form a trust. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Trust came to monopolize 90% of the industry, severely limiting competition. These monopolies were often accused of intimidating smaller businesses and competitors in order to maintain high prices and profits. Economic influence gave these industrial magnates significant political clout as well. The U.S. government adopted policies that supported industrial development such as providing land for the construction of railroads and maintaining high tariffs to protect American industry from foreign competition.

American inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison created a long list of new technologies that improved communication, transportation, and industrial production. Edison made improvements to existing technologies, including the telegraph while also creating revolutionary new technologies such as the light bulb, the phonograph, the kinetograph, and the electric dynamo. Bell, meanwhile, explored new speaking and hearing technologies, and became known as the inventor of the telephone.

For millions of working Americans, the industrial revolution changed the very nature of their daily work. Previously, they might have worked for themselves at home, in a small shop, or outdoors, crafting raw materials into products, or growing a crop from seed to table. When they took factory jobs, they were working for a large company. The repetitive work often involved only one small step in the manufacturing process, so the worker did not see or appreciate what was being made; the work was often dangerous and performed in unsanitary conditions. Some women entered the work force, as did many children. Child labor became a major issue. Dangerous working conditions, long hours, and concern over wages and child labor contributed to the growth of labor unions. In the decades after the Civil War, workers organized strikes and work stoppages that helped to publicize their problems. One especially significant labor upheaval was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Wage cuts in the railroad industry led to the strike, which began in West Virginia and spread to three additional states over a period of 45 days before being violently ended by a combination of vigilantes, National Guardsmen, and federal troops. Similar episodes occurred more frequently in the following decades as workers organized and asserted themselves against perceived injustices.

The new jobs for the working class were in the cities. Thus, the Industrial Revolution began the transition of the United States from a rural to an urban society. Young people raised on farms saw greater opportunities in the cities and moved there, as did millions of immigrants from Europe. Providing housing for all the new residents of cities was a problem, and many workers found themselves living in urban slums; open sewers ran alongside the streets, and the water supply was often tainted, causing disease. These deplorable urban conditions gave rise to the Progressive Movement in the early twentieth century; the result would be many new laws to protect and support people, eventually changing the relationship between government and the people.

The Industrial Revolution is a complex set of economic, technological, and social changes that occurred over a substantial period of time. Teachers should consider the documents in this collection as tools for stimulating student thinking about aspects of the Industrial Revolution.

Suggestions for Teachers

• After providing a definition of the Industrial Revolution and explaining the time span across which it took place, teachers might supply small groups of students with a set of the documents in this primary source set. Students can categorize the documents by whether they provide information about what happened, why it happened, or its effects. Some documents may fit into more than one category. When small groups have completed their work, the teacher can facilitate creating a class list of events of the Industrial Revolution, causes (or supporting factors), and effects. Students may search the Library’s online collections to find additional evidence to support the causes and effects on the class chart.
• Using the documents in this primary source set, students can create a timeline of important events in the Industrial Revolution. The last document in the set is dated 1919. Was the Industrial Revolution over by 1919? Challenge students to find evidence in the Library of Congress digital collections to support their answer (there are documents that suggest industrialization in the South was still taking place into the 1930s).
• Understanding a historical event as it was experienced by those who lived through it is an important skill of historical thinking—and one that can be difficult to develop. Teachers may challenge students to study documents in the collection to identify varied perspectives on the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution, as experienced by people of the day. Would students classify the responses as mainly positive, mainly negative, or about equally divided? How did people respond to what they perceived as negative effects of the Industrial Revolution?
• In 1893, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition, which highlighted achievements of the United States and other nations in a variety of fields, including manufacturing and technology. An entire building was devoted to electricity. Using the primary source set as a starting point, ask students to design an exhibit about the development of American industry for the World’s Columbian Exposition.

Additional Resources

Detroit Publishing Company

Built in America

Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress

Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works

National Child Labor Committee Collection

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Summer School 2: The golden ages of labor and looms

Robert Smith

Alex Goldmark

Audrey Dilling

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We'll have summer school episodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find past seasons of Summer School here . And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School .

Who has the power? Workers or bosses? It changes through the ages, though it's usually the bosses. Today, we look at two key moments when the power of labor shifted, for better and worse, and we ask why then? What does history have to say about labor power right now?

We travel to Sicily, Italy in the year 1347, where the bubonic plague is about to strike. The horror known as the Black Death will remake European society in countless ways, but we'll focus on one silver lining: how economic conditions shifted for workers.

Then we head about 500 years into the future, to an English factory at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, where textile workers take up arms against the machines taking their jobs and show how rapidly labor supply and demand can change. This is the famed tale of the Luddites, now a byword for knee jerk anti-technology, but the true story has nuance and a desperate but rational violent rebellion.

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This series is hosted by Robert Smith and produced by Audrey Dilling. Our project manager is Devin Mellor. This episode was edited by Planet Money Executive Producer Alex Goldmark and fact-checked by Sofia Shchukina.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney .

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Codification, Technology Absorption, and the Globalization of the Industrial Revolution

This paper studies technology absorption worldwide in the late nineteenth century. We construct several novel datasets to test the idea that the codification of technical knowledge in the vernacular was necessary for countries to absorb the technologies of the Industrial Revolution. We find that comparative advantage shifted to industries that could benefit from patents only in countries and colonies that had access to codified technical knowledge but not in other regions. Using the rapid and unprecedented codification of technical knowledge in Meiji Japan as a natural experiment, we show that this pattern appeared in Japan only after the Japanese government codified as much technical knowledge as what was available in Germany in 1870. Our findings shed new light on the frictions associated with technology diffusion and offer a novel take on why Meiji Japan was unique among non-Western countries in successfully industrializing during the first wave of globalization.

We give special thanks to Chris Meissner and John Tang for sharing their trade data for Belgium and Japan. We thank Benjamin Eyal, Isaac Loomis, Zachary Marcone, Ojaswee Rajbhandari, Roshan Setlur, Alex Zhang, and especially Michael Duarte, Verónica C. Pérez, Angela Wu, and Dongcheng Yang for excellent research assistance. We also want to thank Treb Allen, Andrew Bernard, Kirill Borusyak, Florian Caro, Davin Chor, John Fernald, Shizuka Inoue, Takatoshi Ito, Chiaki Moriguchi, Robert Staiger, Jón Steinsson, and Dan Trefler for their excellent comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

MARC RIS BibTeΧ

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Industrial Revolution Key Facts

The Harsh Realities of Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution

This essay is about the widespread use of child labor during the Industrial Revolution. It highlights how the demand for cheap labor led to children working in dangerous conditions in factories and mines. The essay discusses the severe impacts on children’s health, development, and education due to long hours and harsh environments. It also covers the initial acceptance of child labor, the growing public outcry, and the subsequent legislative reforms aimed at protecting child workers. The essay emphasizes the need for a balance between economic progress and ethical considerations, using the historical context of child labor as a cautionary tale.

How it works

The Industrial Revolution, kicking off in the late 18th century and rolling into the early 19th, was a time of big changes that shook up economies and societies big time. While it brought cool new tech and better ways to make stuff, it also brought one of the darkest chapters in history: child labor. This period reminds us starkly how fast growth can mean some folks get hurt along the way.

When factories started popping up across Britain and later around the globe, they needed workers who could be paid less and work long hours.

Kids, with their small hands and willingness to take less pay, became the go-to workforce for factory bosses. They toiled away in textile mills, coal mines, and other industries, doing tough jobs in unsafe conditions. Some were barely out of diapers, working shifts that ran as long as 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week.

The conditions they faced were just plain awful. Factories were noisy, hot, and full of machines that could easily hurt them. In textile mills, kids worked the spinning machines and looms, risking their safety every minute. Down in the coal mines, they did jobs like opening and closing doors or pushing coal carts through cramped tunnels. These tasks weren’t just tough physically—they were downright dangerous, with accidents and injuries happening all too often.

Working like this took a heavy toll on these kids. Long hours and tough conditions meant they didn’t have time to rest or go to school. Many ended up with health problems like stunted growth or breathing issues because of the lousy air in the factories. Without enough food or good medical care, lots of them didn’t make it to adulthood. Plus, missing out on school meant they couldn’t learn the skills needed for better jobs down the line, trapping them and their families in poverty.

At first, not many folks spoke out against child labor. Factory owners liked the cheap labor, and poor families needed every penny they could get. But as people started seeing how bad it was for these kids, they began to push back.

Things started changing in the early 1800s when activists and do-gooders began pushing for laws to protect child workers. The Factory Act of 1833 was one of the first big moves in the UK to set rules for child labor. It put age limits on who could work, capped how many hours kids could be on the job, and made sure factory inspectors kept an eye on things. These laws weren’t perfect and took a while to get right, but they were a big step toward seeing kids as more than just cheap labor.

The fight to end child labor kept going through the 1800s and early 1900s. More laws and changes made things better, like rules that made school mandatory. This meant kids spent more time learning and less time working in dangerous places. By the early 1900s, these laws and how folks thought about child labor had cut it way down in places where factories were booming.

But the memory of child labor during the Industrial Revolution is a clear sign of how growth can mean pain for some folks. Using kids to make money showed how we’ve got to think about people when we’re pushing for more progress. It’s a tough lesson that shows we need to keep an eye on who gets hurt when things change fast.

In the end, child labor during the Industrial Revolution was a sad part of a time when things were changing fast. Using kids in factories and mines to make a buck shows how growth can come with a big cost. Even though things are better now, it’s a powerful reminder of why we’ve got to keep standing up for folks who need protecting, even when times are changing fast.

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Today’s industrial revolution calls for an organization to match

What is humanity’s greatest innovation of the industrial age—the steam engine? Penicillin? The internet?

These are all good candidates, yet without the productivity gains from another crucial innovation, the modern business company, it’s hard to imagine how these inventions could have improved the world at the same scale.

The trouble is that few industrial organizations have truly cracked the productivity code to maintain high performance over the long run. A recent analysis found that as of 2020, the average life span of a company on the S&P 500 index was down to 21 years, compared with 32 years in 1996.

A range of technologies, including most recently generative AI (gen AI), have promised to transform industrial production . But despite the real progress some companies have made in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, productivity growth remains stubbornly low  across most of the world’s largest economies (Exhibit 1).

What’s missing are the organizational structures required to make technology truly work.

Large industrial organizations have traditionally focused on excellence in processes, often for the mass market, such as cars rolling off an assembly line. But today, standard work is much more automated. What’s left is increasingly nonstandard, yet most industrial organizations aren’t structured for nonstandard work—leaving them unable to change at the pace innovation requires.

The experiences of exceptional organizations show that capturing technology’s opportunities means making eight mutually reinforcing shifts that strengthen people, processes, and technology in tandem:

• from process excellence solely focused on repetitive tasks to also applying the principles of excellence to flexible, project-based work, turning the unusual into business as usual
• from control and compliance to empowerment, giving individuals the autonomy and information they need, often based on digital footprints, to work more effectively
• from gathering expertise in specialized silos to making expertise available to all via app stores, allowing workers to integrate highly accessible digital tools for tailored solutions
• from process masters to process reengineers so that rather than simply mastering current processes, managers continually rethink and redesign how tech-enabled processes can improve work
• from going to work to supervising control centers that are increasingly decoupled from physical production flows—opening new opportunities to restructure network strategies
• from Industry 4.0 to “Industry 4 U,” which yields better work environments via stronger technology support, improved ergonomic design, and an inspiring leadership culture
• from ad hoc learning to industrialized capability building to make rapid skill building with large numbers of employees a competitive advantage
• from building internal departments to orchestrating an ecosystem, redesigning how companies integrate knowledge and radical innovation into their value chains by rethinking collaboration models

Building on previous insights codified in methodologies such as agile and lean , the eight shifts collectively represent the greatest change since the matrix organization emerged in the wake of the mid-1960s space race. Meeting the challenge will stretch every critical enterprise capability our colleagues outlined in Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI . The question leaders now face is how to prioritize the five actions they must take.

Turning the unusual into business as usual

Mass production of a standard product was the archetype for the modern enterprise. Standardization of products supported standardization of processes, culminating in management systems such as lean, which rely on elaborate codification of “standard work.”

Today, the context has changed. As automation and gen AI take over more tasks, human work increasingly centers on the sorts of “special projects” that once accounted for only a small share—perhaps 20 percent—of day-to-day work. The unusual is becoming business as usual. Yet governance still consists of heavy layers of (functional) processes on top of project management, yielding convoluted, slow, and resource-intensive decision making.

As automation and gen AI take over more tasks, human work increasingly centers on the sorts of “special projects” that once accounted for only a small share of day-to-day work.

The challenge for business leaders is to flip the ratio: instead of deploying 80 percent of people in processes and 20 percent in projects, they can aim for 80 percent in projects. A few companies have successfully transitioned to a project-based organizational model, such as a major life sciences company that rebuilt its internal structure to support rapid growth. Crucially, the model balances stability and agility by ensuring that every employee has a home unit centered around their skills even as they are working within dynamic project teams whose composition is tailored to specific skill needs.

Within this structure, three additional factors proved critical:

• Build internal talent markets. Leaders can’t assemble effective teams unless they know who in the organization has the required skills. That means both building a skills profile for each employee and making it widely available within the organization. The company’s employee directory now provides detailed skills-based information, such as certification, training coursework, and recent project experience, which is automatically updated after a project ends.
• Set clear boundaries. Clear boundaries were established to operate within, consisting of company priorities, product strategy, project team mission, and short-term team goals. It was also important for senior management to provide rigorous oversight; in this way, they could identify opportunities for teams to share resources or join forces and thwart mission creep within teams.
• Develop achievement-oriented leadership. Company executives recognized that effective leadership of a project team required different skills from those traditionally encouraged in line leadership roles. Rather than directing the work of people with similar training but varying levels of experience, project leaders would need to coordinate individuals with deep expertise across many fields. The role of the leader therefore changed to emphasize what the project sought to achieve—the problems to be solved—along with why and when . The role of the team centered on how —collaborating to find the best solution.

Getting empowerment right

How do you plan in a world that is becoming more and more complex? Often, the counterintuitive answer is, you don’t. The humble baguette illustrates this. Every morning, despite countless potential obstacles, French bakeries sell millions of baguettes—all in what can appear to be a miracle of nonmanagement. Thousands of individual decisions organically converge to produce an essential good, with no need for a central baguette planning department.

However, too many large and complex organizations have yet to emulate the baguette example. They still seek to amass expertise in a traditional hierarchy, even though the assumption that the top of the organization generally knows better than the bottom was never more than partly true—particularly when it comes to understanding how operations really work. The trouble is that many organizations that tried employee empowerment failed and thus reverted to central control.

Getting empowerment right requires a balance: giving workers the independence they need to execute tasks effectively while being prescriptive about what those tasks are meant to achieve. “Independence” and “prescriptive” may sound contradictory, but as long as they are kept in close balance, each supports the other in generating more value (Exhibit 2). Together they call for a new level of transparency regarding both access to data and the data’s implications on results.

Guided by OKRs

Yet access to data is hardly the same as being informed. Frontline workers may now have tools to see exactly how productive their machinery is for different products, but that alone can’t determine how best to improve the line’s productivity—let alone its profitability. Instead, they need to understand how the organization’s strategy translates to the factory floor.

Leaders face the same question, but from the opposite perspective: the need to achieve strategic goals without the wasted effort involved in trying to dictate exactly how the goals are to be achieved.

Originally developed at Intel and expanded at Google, objectives and key results (OKRs) have emerged as an effective balancing mechanism, focusing the organization’s energy on outcomes—the “what”—while allowing greater flexibility on the “how.” The idea is to enable subunits within the organization to use the strategy to articulate goals and, crucially, the results that will matter in achieving them—thereby aligning what they do each day with the organization’s direction.

Defining—and achieving—OKRs calls for clear direction from senior leaders about the company’s strategic goals, as well as communication at all levels of the organization. Accordingly, an empowered organization requires more effort from senior management, not less. For the factory team looking for ways to improve the line’s profitability, OKRs would need to be tailored to the site, accounting for factors such as its position in the supply chain, its current capabilities, the training of its operators, and the needs of in-development products. Frontline workers and managers can then make intelligent trade-offs between maximizing profitability from current production and reducing potential costs for future changeovers.

Using activity-based analytics to drive business performance

The familiar sight of delivery trucks illustrates even more opportunities for empowerment. When a driver finishes a delivery, a quick scan tracks completion in the company’s IT system—which also knows who the driver is, where both the driver and vehicle are located, and which route the truck took to get there. The resulting digital footprint gives the company a very different way of managing tasks, controlling quality, and handling documentation.

It also helps employees, suggesting alternative routes when traffic is heavy or finding a different delivery location if the original is inaccessible. Should priorities suddenly change, the system can reprioritize the worker’s tasks automatically—so that the employee can more easily squeeze in a rush delivery and still finish the day on time.

This logistics example finds its equivalent in manufacturing execution systems (MESs) that are broadly installed in factory environments. Advanced versions can do even more, helping employees build their skills and, ultimately, advance on their career paths (Exhibit 3).

Take the example of a manufacturer of customized technology products. Company leaders learned that frontline assembly workers were often frustrated that when production problems arose, their work wasn’t tracked in enough detail for them to find (and fix) the underlying issues. They wanted a system where every line station would accurately log when the project arrived at the station and which assembly tasks were performed, and then see where workers needed more training to avoid rework. The leaders realized that building such a system would improve both product quality and employee retention, without requiring more time or attention from middle managers.

Indeed, technology can now assume many of the work allocation, planning, performance tracking, training, and issue resolution tasks that consume most of a middle manager’s day. The implication is that many middle manager roles could soon become very different , emphasizing process confirmation and team building as teams become increasingly self-managed (Exhibit 4).

Making expertise available to all via apps

In day-to-day life, knowledge that once took years to acquire is now available instantly, often through an app. But too many companies have been slow to follow this route. Early adopters show how using customized apps in manufacturing operations, for example, can help frontline employees see not only what they are doing but also the value their work is creating. The challenge for companies is to create platforms that replicate these results wherever possible, via apps for everything from monitoring equipment and planning maintenance work orders to guiding defect resolution or extracting strategic insights for production planning.

That would mean investing in the standard prerequisites. Companies need data architects to build a flexible technology stack, data scientists to manage analytics, external partnerships to support the latest app development tools and licenses, and training programs to help the workforce use apps in solving everyday problems—optimizing inventory, debottlenecking production, or managing logistics.

It also means preparing for jobs to evolve, as traditional and tech-centric roles start to merge. Today, the chief information officer (CIO) is a crucial stakeholder for the COO , but tomorrow the COO could simply be the CIO. Likewise, other leaders would have a “major” in data architecture and a “minor” in their respective functional domains. In e-commerce, for example, category managers are increasingly data architects first, under the assumption that they can quickly learn about product categories as needed.

Finally, it means getting serious about building a culture of rapid, constant innovation. Software used to be something most companies would buy. Today, more companies build their own code , written by internal staff as part of a continuous improvement process—which, in the digital world, often boils down to the speed of app evolution. Building an app to track overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) for individual machines is not a one-time commitment. Instead, the app could even evolve toward self-improving as data gets richer and modeling becomes more sophisticated.

Remastering processes

A perennial problem for organizations is the mismatch between how a process is intended to function and how it actually functions (Exhibit 5). Continuous-improvement disciplines seek to reduce the gap, to create “process excellence.”

This problem disappears once a process is correctly designed and fully automated. The ultimate example is the so-called lights-out factory, one in which automation takes over production. Snack company Mondelēz has fully automated dough production in Beijing. Analytical models optimize quality, such as the texture of the dough, and a closed-loop system adjusts the machine settings in real time.

What does it take to go fully lights-out? Humans. Over the next decade, hundreds (if not thousands) of process reengineers will be needed. Chief process redesign officer may become the latest C-suite title, joining recent predecessors such as chief transformation officer and chief digital officer. And even after processes are reengineered, humans would likely still be essential to build and improve automation models and supervise the system from the control room.

That raises the question of where organizations could find the right talent, particularly at leadership levels.

Reshaping production networks with control centers

The Mondelēz example illustrates how automation is changing the factory’s role, but that’s only the start of the story. The COVID-19 pandemic opened everyone’s eyes to the feasibility of remote work. Once most manufacturing tasks—including ones that formerly had to be done in person, such as quality control—require access only to data rather than machinery, sites may start to lose a long-familiar feature: the control room.

If co-location with the production site is no longer necessary, where could control rooms be? Not just anywhere, or where labor is cheapest. The key criterion will likely be access to the right talent and skills, some of which are currently in short supply in developed economies . Technology capabilities are paramount. India, for example, is the world’s second-largest producer of graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math. 1 Brendan Oliss, Cole McFaul, and Jaret C. Riddick, “The global distribution of STEM graduates: Which countries lead the way?,” Center for Security and Emerging Technology, November 27, 2023. It’s also a heavyweight in gen AI use. A recent global survey found that gen AI penetration was highest among organizations in India, at 81 percent, with Singapore ranking second at 63 percent and Spain third at 57 percent.

Companies’ network strategies thus face a refresh, with factors such as geopolitical resilience, language skills, and time zones all important to the mix. Existing shared-service centers can provide a starting point . Their experience in reengineering transactional processes—which increasingly are automated, leaving knowledge tasks organized into service hubs—gives them crucial expertise that reverses the previous outsourcing and offshoring model. Rather than standardize a process before handing it to the service center, it’s the service center that has the competence to standardize.

Industry 4.0 to Industry 4 U

By 2040, advanced manufacturing economies from China and South Korea to the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States are set to see contraction—or, at best, much reduced growth—in their active workforces as societies age. In the United States, for example, the ratio between people aged 20 to 24 and people over 55 in the manufacturing workforce dropped by 16 percent between 2014 and 2022.

Raising productivity growth will be essential to maintain standards of living in advanced economies while raising them in emerging ones. Investments in technologies such as advanced automation and gen AI, especially for routine and knowledge tasks that previously were done by humans, could unlock billions of dollars in economic activity.

Even more important, it would free up workers for higher-skilled work, where labor demand is already outstripping supply . Companies in especially affected sectors , such as US construction and manufacturing, are discovering the importance of an attractive work environment that provides opportunities to learn and grow. The technology that workers use becomes part of an employee-centric approach to digitization, one that seeks to fundamentally change the employee value proposition. “Industry 4.0” becomes “Industry 4 U.”

Industry 4 U is about giving workers the right tools, based on technologies that they’re using in their personal lives, along with a workplace that’s healthy and inspiring. Together, these elements add up to an engaging leadership culture. At a global oil and gas operator, this transition anchored a restructuring of the end-to-end employee experience so that the company could better attract and retain new workers—an especially difficult task in an era of increased environmental awareness and competition from the tech industry. On its own, the company couldn’t reverse climate change or technology shifts. But it could address long-standing on-the-job frustrations for a better working environment, especially during the critical first months of an employee’s career.

Listening to early-stage employees revealed a strong need for additional support, particularly in the renewable-energy business unit. The company responded with a comprehensive employee onboarding app that guided new colleagues through the first few weeks of work. Built in only three months, the app not only created a more positive and connected experience for new hires, reducing attrition, but it also resulted in a new way of working for the technology team.

Industrializing capability building

For an experienced process engineer with a PhD in pharmacy, today’s definition of a successful career would likely mean leading the development of a handful of drugs that, after navigating a complex, high-risk regulatory environment, finally reach the market and are helping patients.

That definition is poised to change. What if instead of a handful of successfully launched drugs, that engineer could point to dozens—because deep learning models had eliminated much of the guesswork that led to development dead ends? And what if newer AI models had made process refinement faster and more accurate so that more products could be developed more cheaply?

McKinsey research estimated that by 2030, activities accounting for 30 percent of current work hours could be automated . Reaching this world would require the engineer to learn new skills, particularly in softer skills such as design thinking —critical for blending decades of hard-won expertise with the promise of AI. Leaders recognize this need: for integrating gen AI into their processes, more than half of employers said they plan to rely on internal capability building to meet their skills needs.

Traditionally, industrial organizations have relied on apprenticeship-based capability building. That model worked well enough for helping small numbers of workers develop well-understood skills, but it can’t meet the scale and speed needed for the rapidly evolving world of AI. The good news, however, is that the upskilling gap may now be shrinking because of easier access and lower cost of reskilling tools. Online courses and immersive-learning platforms make upskilling easily available on a self-service basis. Individual course segments can be slotted into day-to-day business, allowing for continuous learning. Gen AI even offers personalized coaching and advanced translation capabilities, making highly tailored trainings easy to access globally.

A global consumer goods company provides an illustration, having undertaken a two-year global digital transformation across its network of manufacturing plants and its supply chain.

Capability building formed the core of the transformation. Learning centers focused on innovation served as crucial support systems in building a company-wide academy that now leads everything from initial inspiration sessions to immersive capability building. The impact achieved was substantial: productivity increased by more than 15 percent across the network, for savings in the tens of millions of dollars. Additionally, the identification, sizing, and mapping of several hundred unique use cases paved the way for a comprehensive transformation road map. With more than 2,000 learners upskilled across the entire production and supply chain network, the company is now well situated for further improvement.

Orchestrating the ecosystem

In his seminal 1937 book, The Nature of the Firm , Ronald Coase argued that large corporations emerged because they reduced transaction costs: getting things done internally was significantly cheaper than outsourcing or buying services or goods externally. When data and expertise were expensive, having a planning department that understood the organization and could access the right information made economic sense. Today, the data can sit in the cloud, easily accessible to anyone—as can sophisticated planning applications that can import the data at a mouse click and produce a plan.

Companies now have a generational opportunity to reexamine the boundaries of their organizations in answering the most fundamental question: What should we do, and what should we work with others to do? And as transaction costs keep falling—from faxes and the internet to social media and gen AI—where should the work take place? Understanding where the company creates the most value can reveal new opportunities not only to compete but also to collaborate more deeply, turning transactional relationships into genuine partnerships.

For a major utility network, the critical question was one of resilience, both operational and strategic: climate change is increasing stress on physical infrastructure even as the energy transition, new technologies, and geopolitical uncertainties are transforming how energy is created and distributed. Navigating these conflicting pressures led the company to realize that it would never be able to accumulate all the relevant expertise in-house: if it kept trying to do everything, it would do nothing well. At the same time, tapping into external services had never been more cost-effective.

This led the company to a major shift in mindsets. Rather than think of its suppliers as vendors to be given minimal information for maximum negotiating power, the company examined where data sharing would yield better-quality outcomes—and help the company focus its expertise. So, for example, careful sharing of pricing and cost data for types of distribution meant that suppliers could provide better economies of scale and delivery terms.

At the same time, entering a partnership means managing an inherent risk: overdependence. In many cases, this is linked to data access and ownership; conversely, keeping the right data can turn a potential vulnerability into a major strength. After all, Airbnb has data, but no beds; Google Maps has data, but no restaurants; and Uber has data, but no cars—yet each has disrupted an entire industry.

This data-centric model could help manufacturers tap into entirely new sources of growth, especially in industries where hardware may face diminishing returns. Rather than try to turn themselves into software providers, some manufacturers may generate more value under an app store model, with the physical product becoming more competitive because of the wider range of software it can support. This option requires resources—developing the store platform, identifying and protecting the most valuable data, and managing risk and compliance—but could be rewarding for manufacturers willing to commit.

Preparing for the eight shifts

The question for companies isn’t whether these shifts are coming. They’re already under way. What matters is to get started, focusing on five very concrete tasks:

• Understand and shape your role in the ecosystem. What do you do today better than anyone? That’s your current role in the ecosystem. But how will that look in five years? What are your blind spots, and how do you evolve to meet them head-on?
• Develop visionary and courageous leaders. What leadership profiles are currently thriving in your organization? What sets them apart from others? Are they the right ones to steer your company through the technological revolution? And how can you form a coalition with them?
• Define and invest in your tech stack. In five years, what technologies will you say you wish your organization had invested in today? Which ones will need integrating into your tech stack? Is your tech stack flexible—and are you ready to use that flexibility to accelerate innovation?
• Assess capability needs. Which skills of today are likely to remain relevant in the future? What new skills are coming, and how will your organization acquire them (upskill, hire, outsource)? How will capabilities affect your network footprint? Does your capability strategy incorporate the skills available in your ecosystem, not just on your payroll?
• Work in teams, not in pyramids. How are your teams set up today? How much of your work is dedicated to standard tasks to keep lines running, and how much is left for innovation and improvement? Where should the empowerment balance be between independence and prescriptiveness?

Individually, the actions companies face are not new. According to the Oxford English Dictionary , the title “chief executive officer” was first attested in 1914. Corporate training took hold in the late 19th century. Digital Equipment Corporation deployed a matrix organization in the early 1960s. The revolution is not in the individual steps: it’s in the questions that organizations must ask themselves as they consider how the eight shifts affect them. Successful leaders will shift from an evolutionary mindset to a revolutionary one and act now to fix their organizations so that technology can truly accelerate productivity growth.

Dado Misljencevic and Sven Houthuys are both partners in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office; Tom Welchman is a partner in the London office; and Ulf Schrader is a senior partner in the Hamburg office.

The authors wish to thank Charlotte Relyea for her contributions to this article.

This article was edited by Christian Johnson, an executive editor in the Washington, DC, office.

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Education in the Context of Digitalization of the Russian Economy

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Oksana Gryuk

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Date Written: May 10, 2024

The Fourth Industrial Revolution – these technologies cover a number of modern and new concepts such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, autonomous robots, UAVs, cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality/metaverse, modeling and simulators, 3D printing, printed electronics, nanotechnology and neurotechnology, blockchain technology and information security. Industry 4.0 trends are mainly focused on the introduction of digital technologies and the acceleration of ICT processes. Therefore, many developed countries have invested heavily in the transition to this new technological order, especially in the research of innovative technologies. In addition, they consider this concept from the point of view of using environmentally friendly technologies and increasing production levels. The policies of these countries lead to the creation of a new infrastructure environment that has a positive impact on the transformation of traditional sectors of the economy. If Russia wants to be a part of the upcoming scientific, technological and innovative breakthroughs, it must choose the right priorities for its innovative growth. The use of Industry 4.0 can provide the same potential as other countries, so it is important that the country develops its knowledge-intensive industries quickly to take advantage of this opportunity. Therefore, an important task for Russia is the transition to a new technological order 4.0, involving the use of more advanced and modern technologies, as well as the production of innovative and high-tech products. In addition, progressive organizational and managerial decisions should be made in various fields, such as production, science and society. The most important role in this process will be played by knowledge-intensive industries, where their level of development is an indicator of the economic well-being of the country. However, despite the obvious need for the development of these industries in Russia, it has not yet been achieved. We believe that the origin of the term "digital economy" is based on modern economic knowledge and ideas that are represented in intellectual capital and advanced technologies. This concept has recently been an important part of economics. However, over the past decades, we have seen how significant the "digital economy" is in terms of global technological progress. Today, the "digital economy" is more dependent than ever on the creation, dissemination and use of new knowledge and ideas.

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